This past Sunday was member appreciation day @ Extreme Indoor Karting in Costa Mesa- $9 for a 15 lap race. Now the track totally felt worth it, haha. My buddy Chris & I got there around 7:30, 30 minutes before they closed, got in one race. Then we talked with a couple of the employees to rest a bit since are arms were about to fall off & we had one more race.
One of the employees was nice enough to give us a course walk when I asked if they do any walk throughs. I have never received nor expected a course walk from any karting place. His lines & theories were different than my approach, which was enough to improve my best lap time by almost a full second. I won’t mention his name because I’m not sure if he will get in trouble if his boss finds out he was giving a course walk.
So far, that was the best $18 dollars (2 races) I’ve ever spent at a karting place. Gotta love member appreciation days.
Found this lil gem while watching Cold Play perform @ Toyota Concert Series online - those guys have also come a long way from “Yellow.” Nice flowing hair, new sound, Chris Martin jumping around stage like Mick Jagger, haha. Apparently, they’ve been holding free concerts as a way to thank their fans & give people a taste of their new album, SWEET!
New Kids on the Block performed together for the first time in 15 years (found @ bottom):
Toyota makes a great concert series, makes up for that whole crappy “I want my mpgggggs” song, hahaha (New Kids on the Block, Rihanna, Chris Brown, Cold Play, etc).
For those who know me (and for those who dont) -i’m a huge coffee person.
And sometimes i’m not. This morning I woke up, and had a can of Pokka coffee (I swear) and was happy until I got to work at the early time of 9:30. (Wiki of Japanese canned Coffee)
However, my new french press (I only roll Bodiums, what!) was looking for something new.
My buddy Shelly C - (A active Yelper too! ) thoughtfully bought me this from a store in Pheonix, Arizona.
Momma Vakil (my mom) saw the bag around her house, and thought (”you kids buy the dumbest things!”) and immediately freaked out about the price of 14.99. (Of course, the huge “Fuck” via branding on the package did not help either.
Two thumbs down!
Coffee made in French Press;
*caffeine - Lots of it, gave me a nice Coffee buzz
*Nice color (looked darker than the pictures)
*aroma - great aroma, however, had a slight burnt smell. Anyone else?
Overall, for a non-chain coffee, many of you know, you may get a bag of nasty tasty coffee once in a while. However, (if this is any indicator) - the coffee tasted fresh, as if it was only a month old.
Current hot topic on Zilvia.net (Nick Hogan’s Victim) regarding John Graziano’s current condition. As most of you already know, Graziano is an active marine who’s already served 2 tours of duty. Of all the things that could have killed or mamed him, he is in his current state because of a car crash in a Toyota Supra.
Warning: the video may be too graphic for some (more…)
This past weekend, I attended an SCCA autocross practice held by the No Bucks (NO$) club at AAA Speedway. They always hold really decent practices with lots of runs and good changeover times. This time was no exception :).
Overall, I got 13 runs - they were hoping for 16, but we ran short on time, but I was only expecting 8-12. The course layout was AWESOME. It was really nice how they minimized the space used for parking & maximized the course size while still fitting everyone.
This was my first autocross (not counting Lone Pine since it was a time trial, officially) with the Power FC & 265 tires all around. Second gear feels SOOOOO good thanks to Lien from FRSport, who hooked up the Power FC adapter & base map off Cat’s S14.
Early in the day, Mako, the one who always takes awesome pictures of everyone’s cars, took a ride along. “I didn’t realize your car was automatic until you started driving, then I just felt sorry for you.” Sad, but true. Mako noticed that I was taking the turns really wide & said I should be taking the apexs much closer than I currently am.
I had developed this style because of the lack of acceleration of my heavy stock automatic car - if I took turns wider, I was able to maintain a much higher speed average. If I slowed down and took turns too tight, the acceleration coming out of the turn felt like dog poo. Of course, I am positive I took it too far & take turns WAY too far out. During the morning, I was running 75 seconds down to 73 seconds. That was enough to be competitive with most of the newbies, but embarrassing for the class I am in (and considering I’ve been doing this almost 3 years now, yikes).
I spent half the day working on this and got ride alongs with faster guys & girls.
During my work assignment, I got lucky & only had to do gate duty, woo hoo! I still managed to get a sunburn on my shoulders because I took off my long sleeve half way through the day & didn’t reapply sunblock.
By the afternoon, I was getting into the high 71 & low 72 second range. I was lucky enough to get Jason Flores (races an 89 Honda Civic SI in STS with Steven Yeoh, check out his codriver’s blog here: http://yeohbaby.blogspot.com/). Jason gave me some tips, notably that I was entering the hairpins too fast and too sharp. After applying his techniques (which I still need to practice better), I was able to shave about .4 seconds off my time.
Here’s the video with some of his comments @ the end:
No pictures this time, I got too lazy. For those who want to see pictures from the championship (next day), you can check it out on the solo2.com forum thread: http://forums.solo2.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=203.
I was suppose to show up to the championship on Sunday too, but didn’t make it - half way into the day I realized my tire was STILL rubbing into the driver side harness. By the end of the day, relays were clicking like crazy & exposed wire was looking really sketchy. I spent Sunday patching up the harness & readjusting the coilovers - seems like they keep getting a lil loose on one side.
I’ll be prepped soon enough to get a baseline of where I stand overall - hopefully by July.
This guy is totally hardcore - quick release wasn’t secure (mentioned in video comments, brand unknown) - steering wheel comes off, he gets it back on and ready for the turn all while still driving and keeping up with the guy in front, haha.
Of course if that happened during a corner, my oh my.
Best Digg I have ever seen!!! Okay, maybe not the best, but this is hilarious. Vince McMahon was giving away a million dollars on live tv on WWE Raw - wait for it… wait for it…:
A few weeks back, I was cruising down the OC and saw 2 motorcylce police officers at a stop light. The one on the right flips up his visor & chin guard to talk. I’m like WOWZERS, movable chin guard, GENIUS!!!
For those of you wondering, “Why is this so cool?” You’ll understand once you spend a day in Summer autocross.
Open faced helmets are great for ventilation & being able to drink/eat w/o removing your helmet but don’t feel as safe as the full faced counterparts, especially in a convertible. Closed faced helmets have the exact opposite problem.
Enter SHOEI!
After some googling, I found that the helmets the police officers have is the Shoei Syncrotec; officer helmets come w/ added embedded led flashlight, WOOT!
Here’s a pic from Web Bike World so you can see how cool it is:
Neat huh? These run about $325-$400 new; too bad they are DOT approved only and not Snell & SA rated :(. Could have made for a VERY neat autox/track day helmet.
